Use your thighs/knees and reins to frame the horse’s shoulders. Connect your elbows to your hips, so that it feels as if your thighs reached all the way up to your elbows. Keep your hands close together and close to the withers. Riders with a short torso and long arms can keep their hands lower without losing the angle in their elbows and without losing the connection between elbows and hips. Some people are lucky enough to be able to touch the withers with their knuckles. Riders with a long torso and short arms have to keep their hands higher in order not to lose the angle in their elbows or the hip-elbow connection.
Feel the base of the neck through the reins, so that you can feel the shoulder movements of the horse that way. When a front leg is in the air, you can move it sideways with the rein and your thigh and knee on that side. For instance, if you want to move the horse’s right shoulder to the left, apply a pressure with the right rein and thigh/knee when the right front leg lifts off. This will make the right front leg step in front of the left one. It will help in left turns and in lateral movements. In a right turn, this aid can prevent the shoulders from falling in.
A close connection between both reins and the base of the neck also allows the rider to feel the tracking of the front legs and any deviation of the shoulder from the correct line of travel. If the horse gets crooked by drifting with his shoulders, the rider can very easily straighten him out in the same stride. If the reins are close to the neck and the thighs and knees lie soft and flat against the saddle, the horse “bumps” into the framing knee, thigh and rein. The horse practically straightens himself out against the resistance of the framing aids, with a minimal active contribution by the rider.
Framing the shoulders with the reins and thighs creates a solid connection between the horse’s shoulders and the neck, so that the horse cannot escape the rider’s aids by overbending at the base of the neck and leaning onto one shoulder. This allows the energy impulses to go through the entire body, from the hind legs to the bit and back, without leaking out.
Feel free to e-mail me with questions and comments.
Thomas Ritter
